Posts with tag BlizzardEntertainment

Blessing of Kings does a great job with this post of putting into words (and then extending) the idea of something we've talked about many times before: all guilds are not equal. He separates them into a kind of hierarchical class structure, with "Royalty" (guilds like Stars and Ensidia) at the top of the raiding game, going down to "Aristocracy" (guilds working on hard modes), "Gentry" (guilds who've cleared normal but haven't been able to do hard modes yet), "Bourgeoisie" (guilds working on normal), and the "Proletariat" (casual folks who haven't started raiding). I think he's squeezed things down a bit farther than he should -- I would call the "Bourgeoisie" level guilds still working on Ulduar and Naxx normal fights, as I think there are quite a few of those out there. But his points are strong -- there are bands of raiding guilds, partly by Blizzard's design and partly by mere fact that people approach the content in their own ways.

With the countdown continuing on Blizzard's homepage, there's plenty of speculation on what Blizzard is cooking up. Warcraft 4? Starcraft 2? Diablo 3? I'm staying out of the speculation game, myself -- as much as we might guess and hope for a specific product, Blizzard is good at throwing us surprises. However, the Starcraft 2 rumors are growing in volume, fueled by the recent discovery of a Starcraft2.com page owned by Blizzard Entertainment which redirects viewers to Blizzard's main site. Gamespot went live with the story on Tuesday, and since then I've heard it just about everywhere. Reports of it are crowding my inbox. Barrens chat can't stop talking about it. And Blizzard rumors even seem to dominate OOC chat in Lord of the Rings Online. But is this really a sign that we're going to be hearing all about Starcraft 2 this weekend?

My magic 8-ball has informed me signs point to no. Or even if Starcraft 2 is what we're going to hear -- this isn't really a sign of it. The domain record from Network Solutions tells us that Blizzard has owned Starcraft2.com since 1999 and the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine shows the page redirecting to Blizzard's main home page since at least 2002. Starcraft2.com is neither new nor has it recently changed. No, Blizzard doesn't own Diablo3.com (it's a Diablo 3 news site), Warcraft4.com (an advertisement site), WorldofStarcraft.com (a German WoW site), or WorldofDiablo.com (a German Diablo site). But does the fact that they've owned Starcraft2.com for eight years now mean anything relevant to the coming announcement? I think not.

[Thanks to numerous tipsters]

Hot on the heels of rumors that Blizzard might be announcing a Starcraft 2 in the near future, job postings are springing up on Blizzard's web site seeking people for a "Next-Gen MMO" project. World of Starcraft, maybe?World of Warcraft 2? (Though it seems early for a sequel, with Blizzard's development cycle you never know.) World of Diablo? There's no details of yet, which just leaves plenty of room for uninformed speculation. But f you think you have what it takes to work for Blizzard as a Lead Engine Programmer, Lead Tools Programmer, or Lead Technical Artist, it's time to polish up your resume.

For those of you hoping to score an exciting job in customer service for Blizzard, but not really wanting to move all the way out to Irvine, CA, you now have another option. The Austin Business Journal is reporting that Blizzard is opening a facility in Austin, TX that could eventually house around 500 employees, consisting of gaming support, quality control, and internal support staff. If you happen to be in the area, they're currently accepting resumes for customer service representatives. I'm in the area, but if the amount of angry forum posts I see on a daily basis are any indication, I'm not sure I could take the sort of abuse Blizzard's CSRs probably deal with. At least not for 40 hours every week!

Our friends at Joystiq have pointed out an interview with Blizzard's VP of business development, Itzik Ben Bassat, at GameIndustry.biz. In it, he again confirms yearly expansions -- though he didn't let slip any details on what we might see in the next one. However, he has some interesting things to say about gaming consoles, summed up in this quote:

Consoles are becoming sophisticated PCs which sit in the living room... We'll have to see how all this develops. Maybe in five years you won't need a console because you'll have one PC which delivers content all over your house.

No plans to bring World of Warcraft to the console market, then? Bassat says there are no plans to bring the game to consoles, though Blizzard is keeping a close eye on the next gen machines, especially their online services. And he has nothing but good to say about Xbox Live Arcade:

I'm very impressed, I'm impressed by the people who do it, and the service is very easy, very intuitive. I love it.

Is anyone else getting mixed signals here?

The San Jose Mercury news managed to snag an interview with Blizzard Entertainment's president, Mike Morhaime. This doesn't contain lots of news about the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion, like the recent interviews with Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton, but does provide a broader-picture view of what's happening back at Blizzard entertainment. How has money and success impacted the company? Well, it's a bit much to summarize, so go check it out yourself.